Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
A number of compositions are known which may be applied to skin or inanimate surfaces to confer bactericidal or fungicidal properties or both. Many of these are effective against selected organisms only, for example gram positive bacteria but not gram negative bacteria, but the better products are of broad spectrum effectiveness against bacteria and fungi. In our patent application PCT/AU96/00224 (published as WO96/033748) we described a polyvinyl pyrrolidone (“PVP”)-triclosan complex which is effective against a broad spectrum of bacteria and fungi.
In another patent application PCT/AU2006/000130 (published as WO06/081617) we described a poly vinyl alcohol (PVAlc)-quaternary ammonium compound complex which is effective against a broad spectrum of bacteria and fungi.
However the only known safe polymer/biocide complexes which are effective against viruses incorporate iodine. These complexes, such as are formed by iodine and ethoxylated non-ionic surfactants or iodine and polyvinylpyrrolidone, are very dark brown in colour and stain both inanimate surfaces and skin and clothing resulting in them being largely unpopular. Furthermore the active biocide in the complexes is iodine, a very chemically active substance. This high degree of reactivity leads to short residual activity since the iodine is sacrificially active against not only micro organisms and viruses but also against all proteins and many other substances. It would be highly desirable to provide a composition which was not only bactericidal and fungicidal but which was also viricidal, non staining and safe.
In addition many of the known compositions such as the iodine complexes described above are only efficacious for a matter of a one or two hours. It would be desirable to provide a composition which had a residual efficacy for days or weeks. Desirably the composition should be non staining, clear or virtually invisible when applied to a surface, should be adherent, and durable.